News for David Cross

We hope we’re not presuming too much here, but what with you being here now, reading this this thing that we wrote, it’s probably fair to say you are partial to the thing we do (if there’s any question, we release musical records (and t-shirts!)) But you may or may not also be aware that we are, on occasion, a comedy record label and are sometimes hilarious. Well, not us exactly, but at least a small handful of the artists we work with are professionally hilarious—you know, for their job (unlike the person authoring this blogpost). Specifically, Flight of the Conchords, Eugene Mirman, David Cross, and Patton Oswalt are hilarious. And right now, everything related to those very funny professional comedians that we sell is 30% off at SubPop.com! That means all CDs, LPs, DVDs, tapes, t-shirts, and perhaps more!

Somewhere probably in the top 3 or so reasons why you should buy more stuff from us here at the Sub Pop brand internet concern (the others in the running being “friendliness” and “because we all really want to keep our super cushy, glamorous music industry jobs”) is that we are forever giving away tons of free crap! And, frequently, the stuff we are giving away might not even, in certain circles, under the proper lighting, fall directly under the heading of “crap”!

For instance… Right now (it’s Fri. May 21, 2010), if you pre-order the new Blitzen Trapper album Destroyer of the Void from us before June 8, we will give you, for free and in addition to the album itself (which will cost you), a very attractive and also quite functional beverage “koozie”! This thing is made of some kind of foam, it’s hunter orange, and in a brown ink that from a distance kind of looks maybe like green, says “Blitzen Trapper” right on it in an artful typeface reminiscent of that used on the Destroyer of the Void album cover! There’s more info on all of that right here.

And, it’s FREE!

Another example… Until its May 25th release date, if you pre-order the new David Cross CD/DVDBigger and Blackerer in the specially (“a little bit lower”) priced CD + DVD combo pack, you will (probably – it’s a while supplies last deal) also get, for free, a signed (by David Cross, no less) copy of the handsomely-printed bio for this release!

Other recent examples of free junk that we’ve given away to people who pre-order records from us (with the associated bands in parentheses)…
- Special posters (CocoRosie!)
- CDRs with tracks not on the album (Avi Buffalo!)
- Cassettes (weird!) with tracks not on the album (Male Bonding!, Dum Dum Girls!)
- Special scrapbook/lyric books (Beach House!)
- Personal “thank you” phone calls from the artist (Eugene Mirman!)
- We’ve also given away DVDs, lenticular postcards, bandannas, 7" singles, and a bunch of other stuff! No doubt you get the picture.

ANDALSO! Sometimes we do contests on the website, where we give away the very same records that we so often attempt to entice you people to buy. Like, for example, in the recent If You Could Ask Davis Cross One Question, What Would It Be? contest we asked you guys to come up with questions for David and then included some of them in Lacey’s interview with him (which, you should read because it’s funny). And, the five people whose questions were chosen each received FORFREE both the Bigger and Blackerer CD and DVD. We are, you are correct in believing, exceedingly nice. Another example: for each of the first few months of this year, until she decided to hang it up, Lacey was giving away copies of all of our releases for each month in her A Form of Paying Attention column. Like so:

And, of course, we’re forever giving away free mp3s from the records we put out. Right now, we have free tracks up from upcoming, not even yet released records on the artist pages (under the clever/very obvious, we hope, heading of “Listen”) for…

There are a few things that we know about Daris. We know that he came into The Biggest Loser at 346 pounds. We know that he lost 151 pounds while on the ranch and we know that he can run a marathon in 4 hours. We also know that he’s a huge (literally and figuratively) David Cross fan (whose new cd and dvd, Bigger and Blackerer come out on May 25th!). Look, I know that this kid is a cry-baby and that he has completely fucked himself over by regressing with his emotional eating (once he got home from the fat farm/ranch) and all that shit but I think he rules. How can you not love the kid?

Please help us keep Daris in the running to be the next Biggest Loser. Call 1-866-492-6801. Your first 3 votes count!

We recently held a contest to find out what kind of info you guys wanted to know about David Cross, and all we got were a lot of questions wanting to know shit about why he’s such a dick or about his relationship with Amber Tamblyn. You know, the thing is, David and I have had some really great times together, as you can see from our photos. Also, he’s a really great, sweet guy who cares a lot about animals, presidents, and how condescending Whole Foods is. I had the opportunity, while David and I were at Medieval Times in Schaumberg, Illinois (holler!), to kick back over a bowl of Dragon’s Blood (aka tomato) soup and find out just who he really is. Let’s meet David!

LS: David, first off I’m going to ask you some fan questions that were submitted. Later on I will ask you my own, but here’s what the fans want to know:

Q: My 7-year-old loves to read the jokes from the back of Highlights Magazine and “tell” them back to me. Is this the path most professionals follow to become comedians?

DC: If by most you mean at least slightly more than 50 % then, yes. The rest of us started by stealing material from the kids who memorized the stuff from Highlights. P.S. They still make that thing? I remember reading that when I was at the medicare office waiting room with the other poor, white trash kids. And I’m an oldie! [Goofus and Gallant taught me all my manners. –ed]

Q: Do your parents like your jokes?

DC: My mom does yeah. Well to be more precise I’m not sure about the jokes per-se but she thinks that the fact that I’m a successful comic is “neat”. [It is neat! –ed]

Q: Who inspires you? What are you listening to alot of lately on your IPod?

DC: I am inspired by my friends and girlfriend more than any specific person. Although right now I’ve been watching Shameless (a British show) on dvd, catching up on it and I find it very inspiring. As a tv show. As art. I can’t wait to see how they fuck up the American version. Should be painful. I am listening to Dum Dum Girls (right now as I type this) old Goldie, still listening to Blueprint 3, Avi Buffalo, and when I’m walking home buzzed from the Pub I’ll listen to some old mod stuff — The Jam, Buzzcocks, Fall type stuff from my teenage years. I figure since I’m in London now…Oh! And this really great Nick Cave bootleg I got at the Portobello Market. That too.

DC: If I remember correctly one of the writers brought that up in the writers room as a commonly used phrase and every other person was like, “what the fuck are you talking about? I’ve never heard that” and everyone made fun of him. I am completely wrong about that though. [OK then! -ed]

DC: Yeah! We’re very good friends. Apart from the thing with getting him banned from the Arclight Cinema for life we’re cool. [This is probably a really, really good story. –ed]

LS: Okay, well those questions were just great—thanks, readers! Now, David, I have a few things I want to know about you, so listen up. What’s your daily routine when you’re not working? Do you hang out at your house mostly or do you go out a bunch? Are you a breakfast eater?

DC: If I’m in NY I go out quite a bit. Part of that is having a dog, but even before I did I would just wake up, have a cup of coffee, check my email, scan the news, and then just head out on foot or bike with no real plan. It’s one of the best things about NY. And you invariably end up doing or experiencing something fun. If I’m in LA I mope around the area I’m in usually wishing I was back east. Now that there is a Trader Joe’s in the area (in NY) there is literally nothing better about being in LA. I’m annoying like that.

LS: I’ve read that you attended a performing arts high school—what was that like?

DC: It was a life-saver. And I mean that literally. I probably would’ve dropped out of high school and headed to NY and who knows what kind of trouble I would’ve gotten in then. I often credit moving from the suburbs to the city and going from my awful upper middle-class, Baptist, white jock-centric high school (Crestwood High) to this cool, very diverse in every sense school where P.E. was replaced by theater movement and shit like that with, perhaps, saving my life.

LS: Were you fairly popular?

DC: Somewhat. I think people knew who I was because I was a smart-ass but I wouldn’t say I was all that popular. [Notorious D.I.C. –ed.]

LS: Do you think you would’ve been a wildly different person if you had just gone to a regular school?

DC: I think I would have done things more out of anger and desperation and that sometimes isn’t the best motivation for doing things. I probably would have acted out in increasingly self-harmful ways. [That just kinda happened naturally in your adult life, right? –ed]

LS: Did you do drugs in high school?

DC: Not a lot but I would get high if anything. I started getting high at about 13. Occasionally drink but mostly weed. Not that much though. I was so bored it made life slightly more interesting. [God, tell me about it. –ed.] I didn’t try acid or mushrooms until college. And then I tried a LOT of acid and mushrooms.

LS: What are some hobbies of yours? Do you go to the gym?

DC: When I’m in LA I make myself go to the gym because I wouldn’t get much exercise outside of the occasional hike if I didn’t. In NY I walk or bike for miles a day. Every day. Are you equating going to the gym with a hobby? What a shitty hobby! [I’m fat, so I just assume it must be a hobby because why the hell else would you do it? Well, I guess to not be fat, but you know what I mean. –ed] I collect baseball cards sort of. In a rich persons way where I just buy them and put the cool ones up on my “baseball card shelf” in my office. I’m not a hardcore completest. What else? I like going to the different Scientology Centers at each city I go to. [Have you been to the one in Seattle? It’s a weird spot off Aurora, next to all the hookers. –ed.] And I like Scrapbooking the life of Anita Fargimount of Cedar Point, IL. [You are making that up. –ed]

LS: I have a list of some things here that are generally regarded as being funny. Please tell me if you find these things funny. Number one is Shreds

LS: We’re almost done, and I think this could go either way, how do you feel about Daniel Tosh?

DC: Yes, I like him and the show. He’s kinda the perfect host for it. [Really?! I am pleasantly surprised by your response! I saw him once a loooong time ago. He opened for Dave Chappelle at some comedy club in Austin. I think the logo is shaped like a chili pepper on wheels. This was in 1998 or so. –ed]

LS: And finally, my favorite show and yours…America’s Funniest Home Videos!

DC: Ummmmmm…… [You obviously are not smoking that much pot these days. –ed]

Thanks for your time, David. I have so much more that I want to know now, so maybe we can do a round two at the Scientology Center next time you are in town. OH SHIT! I almost forgot! Be sure to pick up David’s new album and DVDBigger and Blackerer out May 25th!

Not nearly often enough, but on occasion Sub Pop staffer Lacey (the “genius” behind both A Form of Paying Attention and People Who Work Here) interviews the artists we work with and members of our staff for the world famous subpop.com website. She frequently gets people to reveal deeply intimate truths about themselves to the entire online world, or at least the entire subpop.com blog readership. Her interviews can get a little personal, but believe it or not, she’s actually holding back in some of these conversations. Anyone who’s met her knows that she tends to really let the invasive questions fly face-to-face.

Around the release of his most recent, most excellent album God Is a Twelve-Year-Old Boy with Asperger’s, Eugene Mirman gamely agreed to be subjected to her unpredictable line of questioning and he seemed no worse for wear from the experience. So with the new David CrossDVD/CD Bigger and Blackerer coming up, we thought we’d try to get David to participate in his own subpop.com blog interview. We asked, and to his credit/our surprise, he agreed! This time though, we’re opening this up to include not only the sort of questions we’ve come to expect (and, to be fair, really very much enjoy) from Lacey (ex.: “Sometimes you say hi to me and sometimes you don’t—what’s the deal with that?”) but also some from you guys as well. Send us the questions you’re dying to ask David Cross and if we use yours, you’ll get both the satisfaction of an answer (or something like it) and your very own DVD/CD copy of Bigger and Blackerer, as a free prize from us.

We’re confident you guys can come up with some good, insightful, maybe even funny questions. Submit your questions on our Facebook page or in the comments below.

We at Sub Pop Records are incredibly proud to announce that on May 25th, we will be releasing the first new comedy album from David Cross in 6 years! On this same day, and with an equally heapin’ helpin’ of self-congratulatory hoo-ha, we will also be releasing the first new David Cross DVD in nearly 7 years! And, maybe a little confusingly, they are both entitled Bigger and Blackerer! Less confusingly, they are both totally fucking awesome.

Details are like so…

The new David Cross album and DVD Bigger and Blackerer was taped during two shows, back-to-back on the same evening at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre. As will be obvious by the packaging (and maybe some of the words here), this title applies to both a CD and a DVD; separate releases in separate formats with the same name. Though both media are housed on a shiny, silver five-inch disc, each is an entity unto itself. And while there is some overlap, each is full of material that appears solely on one or the other. Only by watching the DVD will you learn of Cross’ unique relationship with the deaf community, share his canny insights into the editorial machinations behind the Bible, and marvel at how well a bald, middle-aged white guy can fill out a pair of jeans. Yet one must listen to the CD in order to hear about gastro-intestinal misadventures with his dog Ollie Red Sox, or sing along with “The Sultan’s Revenge,” the swinging, Vegas-style opening number composed by Cross and his good friend Mark Rivers (author of the theme to Mr. Show).

During his illustrious career, David Cross has played recurring roles on the TV programs Arrested Development and The Colbert Report, and won an Emmy Award for his contributions to The Ben Stiller Show. He has also starred in such films as Waiting for Guffman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the Bob Dylan fantasy I’m Not There (in which he portrayed Allen Ginsberg), and Kung Fu Panda. Bigger and Blackerer is both David Cross’ third album and second DVD on Sub Pop Records, preceded by the albums It’s Not Funny and Shut Up, You Fucking Baby! (2002), and the 2003 DVD tour documentary Let America Laugh. He is currently living in exile in the UK, working on the show The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (to be broadcast on IFC in the USAthis fall).